


Honor Your Father, Love Your Mother

by SoriSeeraKyra



Series: Family Values [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Multi, Other, Sex Work, Strained Relationships, Telekinesis, metahuman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 12:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12887718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoriSeeraKyra/pseuds/SoriSeeraKyra
Summary: It's been two years since you left Gotham, but something keeps calling you back no matter how hard you try to stay away. You know eventually, your father will find you.





	Honor Your Father, Love Your Mother

It was January when you returned to the old apartment you and your mother shared. The moment you opened the door, the smell of her perfume wafted through your nose. The building itself had been abandoned not long after you had gone to live with your father. When you were old enough you had begun sending money to a service that was able to maintain your small home. It was sentimental and it wasn’t smart, you knew that. Being so close to Gotham put you in jeopardy, he would realize that you came here eventually, especially since you have his attention now. However, there is still a childish part of you that longs to be surrounded by your mother, the person who loved you the most, and it was a large enough part that you didn’t mind being exposed.

 

Sitting on the old, worn couch, you close your eyes and begin to finger a necklace resting on your neck. Your mother had left you a locket. It was one of the things that you discovered when you first came back. It was stashed under a locked safe, hidden preciously underneath your mother’s bed.  It was a picture of her holding you, the first time she brought you home from the hospital. Likely taken by a friend or a family member. From the delicate packaging you’d found it in, she was probably planning on giving it to you as a gift.

 

The wooden frame of the building creeks as wind passes through the decrepit building. It wasn’t safe to stay in this apartment for too long. Terminates had been eating at the wood, mold and rot had begun to set into the crooks and spaces of the building. You probably should have paid to have the entire building up kept, but planning for the future is something that you have only recently gotten used to.

 

You stand from the couch when you feel sleep beginning to wash over your limbs. The moment you stand there is a creek that sounds through the building, but it doesn’t come from you, and it instead comes from the entryway of the apartment.

 

You don’t jump when the footsteps make their way into the apartment and start walking down the short hallway.  Instead you wait until the footsteps come and stop at the doorway.

 

You turn a meet a familiar pair of blue eyes looking at you rather tiredly. You don’t say anything to the man, but you can’t help but be curious at his appearance. Clearly, he had no intention of trying to capture you, wouldn’t he need his bat suit for that?

 

“I came to return this,” he starts holding up a small leather bound black book. You could see the pale gold stitching of “diary” on the cover. He doesn’t move from his position and places the book on a small wooden end table that sits at the mouth of the doorway. “I didn’t think you should leave without having it.”

 

He rubs his black gloved hands together as if trying to make himself warm. You can tell it’s just to humanize the atmosphere in the room though. There is no reason for him to be cold, especially with that heavy black coat he’s wearing.

 

“Your hair is longer,” he offers as he slowly starts to walk into the room, approaching you the way one would a wild animal. “It’s pretty.”

 

Your hand absently comes up to curl around the ends of your hair, “My mother used to wear it this way.”

 

“I see.”

 

It’s awkward silence that follows, he didn’t know what to say. How could he, he doesn’t know anything about your mother?

 

“The boys they really miss you.”

 

“Do they?” you ask with a raised eyebrow. “Are you sure it’s not guilt they’re feeling? You can’t miss someone you don’t know.”

 

A heavy sigh falls from his mouth, and you notice that he is still hesitant about moving around the room. “If I wanted to kill you I would have by now.”

 

His blue eyes flash to yours, “So, you’ve gotten stronger then?”

 

“I’ve had two years to improve, it would be foolish not to make use of that time.”

 

He moves into the room and takes a seat on the small couch where you had been sitting. While he is moving, you notice the hint of gray that has started to appear in his hair. He’s getting older, and you wonder if the reason that he didn’t come in his suit is because he’s in pain. Body hurting from all the years that he has been abusing it.

 

“What have you been doing for these past two years?” he questions rather cordially.

 

You don’t respond as you walk over to the living room window. You see the sleek blackness of one of his sports cars.

 

“You came here by yourself?” You question. “What if I wanted to kill you?”

 

“It was a chance I was willing to take. I figured you wouldn’t want to desecrate the place that means the most to you by killing me.”

 

“I see, so you took a calculated risk, and assumed that I hadn’t turned into a rabid murderer.”

 

“Not if you were the daughter your mother raised.”

 

Your eyes cut to him rather sharply and a bitter distaste floods your mouth. “Just because you read some book, don’t act like you know her, or me.”

“Your right, I’m sorry.” He tries to appease but your shoulders are tense and there is an anger in your tone that makes him question his judgement in coming here unprotected.

 

The room is made colder by your anger as the fleeting comfortability of your conversation is sucked out of the room by his poor choice in words. You decide it would be best to remove yourself from the conversation. With practiced soft footsteps, you’re out of the apartment, diary in hand.

 

Bruce doesn’t try to stop you, he knows you’ll be back. He’d been watching your movements for the past year after all.

 

***

It’s the middle of February when you return to your mother’s apartment. The thirteenth to be precise. The day before your beloved mother’s birthday.

 

You had been excited to return to the apartment so close to such a happy occasion, you’d even taken the opportunity to bake your mothers favorite cupcakes. You’d have one today and the rest tomorrow, when you were back in your home.

 

But the joy you had been expecting to wash over you had been broken the moment that you had stepped into the apartment building. The first step told you that something was wrong. There was no familiar creek in the stair when you pressed your weight down on the wooden slat. No faint fall of saw dust, when you opened and closed the heavy doors. There was no faint draft giving the apartment a slight chill. It was not the building you grew up in anymore.

 

Your suspicions had been confirmed when you grabbed the familiar door knob of your mother’s apartment. It rusted red had been replaced with shiny golden new one, and although in the same style, there was nothing the said home about this door knob.

 

Your heart drops when you press open the door. The sweet smell of your mother’s perfume doesn’t great you, nor does the wet dampness of mold or rot. The smell makes you want to vomit as it hits the sensors of your nose. Wood polish. It was the same that Alfred used to make sure that the furniture was bright in the manor.

 

Looking around the apartment you noticed that almost nothing was out of place, that a less observant person would not have noticed the changes that have been made, but you do. The pale yellow of the walls had been updated, it was the same color, but clearly a fresh coat of paint had been slathered over the walls.

 

He’d had the floors torn up too. Likely in an effort to get rid of the termites. He had had new hardwood floors installed and that’s where the smell was coming from. The table that stood at the mouth of the hall way stood there seemingly unbothered, but it had been polished as well.

 

The torn fabric of your mother’s couch cushions was mended or brand new, you couldn’t tell. Your eyes were starting to darken. Becoming blinded by tears and rage.

 

Why does he do this? Why does he try to fix things that aren’t broken? Throwing money at you wouldn’t make you the person he wanted you to be so why would he come here and try to ruin the only good part about you?

 

The room starts to feel suffocating the more that the scent of wood fills your nose. He’d replaced the curtains, that kitchen counter, the television, everything. Everything here was fake. Your mother wasn’t here anymore, he killed her. He took everything away that made this apartment hers, yours and replaced it with a fake.

 

You can feel the control that you had so diligently practiced for the last two years begin to slip from your grasp. The first thing that starts to float are the new cushions, next it’s the table, then the television, and then the floor boards.

 

***

He’d rushed over the minute the camera watching that apartment had been tripped. He’d expected her to return on her mother’s birthday. Her arriving early would mean that he wouldn’t get the chance to place the flowers he had ordered on the kitchen top. He’d hoped she liked his gesture; restoring her old apartment. Perhaps they could have a conversation about what made the place so special to her.

 

The car stops in front of the apartment building and as soon as his foot steps onto the snowy side walk he knows that something is wrong. The air feels heavier here than it does in all of the other places around. There is a nervous energy that wracks at his spine as he begins his ascent up the chairs to her top floor apartment.

 

He stops in front of the newly furnished door and begins to turn the doorknob, only stopping when he hears an agonized scream from inside of the room. He pushes through the fear when he hears sobbing from inside.

 

When he pushes open the door his eyes widen with amazement at the things he sees. Furniture floating and bobbing up in down in a rather rhythmic like dance, moving up or down every time she took in a breath.  As he walked in he realized that he would have to watch his footing. The newly installed floor was missing key pieces and a misstep could cause him to break his neck.

 

When he is safely out of the entrance hallway he takes the time to observe the sobbing girl, curled in the middle of the living room floor. She looked as little as she did when she was first brought to him when she had just turned ten.  Her large unbuttoned pea coat looks like a blanket that a child would cling onto. She turns to him, with wide teary eyes and flushed cheeks. Her hair is ticking to her forehead and eyebrows are furrowed like she is in pain. A sob wracks her form when she sees him and his heartbreaks when he realizes that he is the cause of her pain.

“Why did you do it?!” She questions

 

“I was trying to help,” he offers.

 

“Everything is gone, you got rid of everything, you got rid of her!” She screech’s. In her agony, she sends knife flying past his head. A cut opening on the high point of his cheek, an indication of how close she had just come to ending him.

 

“I wanted to help this place was falling apart.”

 

There is a pained shake of her head and her hands come up to cover her ears as if she is trying to block out the sound of his voice.

 

“Shut UP!” She screams, her voice comes across as an echo and then her eyes begin to turn white with rage. “Just Leave!”

 

The objects that’d been whirling around the room begin to spin violently and he is afraid. The foundations of the building begin to shake and wind begins to spew through the room as the windows are blown out.

 

He watches as tears as she moans and buries her face into her knees. His throat is tight at the sight of her. He had done this to her. No matter what he seemed to do when it came to her, he always seemed to make things worse than they should have been. He knew he should respect her wishes, to leave her alone like she asked, but would that be what a good father would do?

 

Instead of quietly leaving the room and waiting for her to calm down, he carefully maneuvered through the flying furniture, head almost coming into contact with a loose floorboard.

 

Carefully he kneeled next to her, placing a large warm hand on her back.  Her head snaps up to look at him, eyes a ghostly white. Her lips pull back in a snarl, probably getting ready to shout at him to leave again, but he doesn’t allow her to speak. Quickly he uses the hand that is resting on her back to pull her into him, brining her into a tight hug. Her body stiffens and for a few tense minutes they stay that way in silence, object circling around them menacingly.

 

He almost lets out a sigh of relief when her arms wrap themselves around his frame. Her quiet sobbing feels strange as she jerks and coughs against his form, tears sinking through his shirt, but he continues to hold her.

 

Finally, the room begins to turn back to normal. The largest objects fall limply to the ground first. The room is ruined, but he imagined the well put together apartment that she’d walked into had looked like a disaster zone in her mind, so this would be no different.

 

“I’m sorry,” He mumbles into her hair.

 

She doesn’t say anything but her hands clench around the fabric of his coat and she continues to cry.

 

***

It’s March and the flowers are beginning to bloom again.  You are on your hands and knees, scrubbing the tile of your mother’s apartment. After the incident, you had begun to put the apartment together by hand. Bruce had given you the information about where the original items from the apartment had been sent and he had even helped you bring some of them back by hand. The things that weren’t completely destroyed you had returned to their rightful places, but things like the ripped-up couch stayed in the dump where they belonged.

 

There is a knock on the door, and you know by the pattern that it is Bruce. You don’t bother to get up from your position to open the door, a slight incline of your head is more than enough.

 

The slight creek from the hallway followed by the familiar heavy steps lets you know that he came in.

 

“It’s always a little surprising when you do that,” He comments.  You stand from your position in the kitchen. You look over the counter to see him standing in the middle of the living room.

 

“It looks nice,” he comments with a weak smile. You stare blankly at him.

 

“What’s that?” You question looking at the man’s hands.

 

He is carrying a small bag in his hands. He doesn’t say anything and instead walks over to the counter and places it in front of you. Curiously, your hand finds itself digging through the bag. Pulling out a square box, your eyes get wide as you begin to read what it said.

 

“This is-“

 

“When I read her journal, I saw this was the fragrance she wore. I noticed that whenever I came in here it would always have that smell. I figured I could at least get you this, to make this place feel like home again.”

 

You stare up at him up with grateful eyes. It was the one thing you hadn’t had the time to go out and replace yet.

 

You take it and walk into the bedroom, placing it down on the small vanity to use later. When you return to the living room you seem him looking at the pictures on the one of the small shelves.

 

“Your mother was beautiful,” he comments, looking at the various pictures of you and your mother together smiling. “I wish I knew her better.”

 

A hollow chuckle leaves your lips at the absurdity of his statement, “Yes, I imagine an hour isn’t long enough to get to know someone.”

 

It sounds harsh leaving your lips, and you know it shouldn’t. Your mother was who she was, and even when she was alive, you were never ashamed of her nor did you think ill of her clients. However, when it came to Bruce, there was a bitterness that was hard for you to overcome.

 

There is an awkward silence that falls over the room. Blue eyes watch you warily from his position in the living room, and you feel guilt and anger begin to eat at your belly.

 

“Did you not like me because of what my mother was?” It’s a hard question that forces itself past your lips and even just asking it makes tears come out of your eyes.

 

His blue eyes look at you wide in shock and his lips part as if he was going to say something but the words weren’t able to leave his lips.

 

“At first, I thought you knew about my powers and that’s why you didn’t want me. And then I found out who you were and I thought that can’t be the reason. Then you went and you got Tim and I thought that you really didn’t like me, that there was something wrong with me.”

 

You stop to wipe a tear that began to fall down your cheek, “and then Damian came, and he was horrible, and you still didn’t want anything to do with me. Even though we were the same. And the only thing that I could think of was that you were ashamed of me, because of how I got here. And that felt horrible especially considering who Damian’s mother is. Is being a hooker really worse than being a murder?”

 

He looked at you with strange eyes, a look you couldn’t actually understand. You realized you didn’t know him well enough to decipher the looks he had on his face.

 

He walks closer to you, finally joining you in the kitchen.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry that I made you feel that way. But when you came to me, you were so different than the way I had found Dick or Jason. You were just you. I didn’t know about your powers until you left. To me you were just a little girl who had lost her mother and were forced to come live with a stranger. I think a part of me thought that you would be better off without me forcing myself onto you. The only way I knew how to help them was to make you into someone like me, but I couldn’t do that with you. You can’t get revenge on cancer, there was no boogey for me to teach you not be afraid of. Those boys, the way that I found them, they were already drenched in this life. They were already two steps away from becoming like me. You weren’t, so I couldn’t help you, not an any healthy way at least.”

 

You aren’t sure how to reply, realizing that his attitude and his dismissive treatment of you had nothing to do with being ashamed of you, but being incompetent.

 

“I even thought that perhaps that life with me wouldn’t be for the best for you. I had made such a mess of the others; how could I raise you? But a selfish part of me wanted to keep you with me, even if I couldn’t give you what you needed or wanted. As a result, I made the mistakes that I wanted to avoid. I failed again.”

 

His large warm hands find themselves resting on your shoulders and he squeezes your shoulders tight with affection, “But please know that I have never been and never will be ashamed of you or your mother.”

 

Your throat is tight with emotion and just like a month ago, you find your face buried in his chest arms wrapped around his back, crying.

 

***

Its April and you sit in your mother’s apartment watching people walking down the busy street enjoying the new warmth of the late spring sun. The new warmth was welcome change to the rather dour winter that you had experienced.

 

Sitting in the repaired apartment you felt strange. You realized that this was no longer your mother’s apartment, it was just yours. As much as you had tried to preserve what was left of her, every time that you set foot in the room, scrubbed some dirty away from a surface, or replaced some run-down furniture, you were making the apartment yours. The gradual changes allowed you to grieve for your mother properly, in a way that you hadn’t been allowed when you were younger, and it had you feeling lighter and happier than you had been.

 

“I’m usually not one for tea, but this one isn’t bad,” a voice comments pulling your attention away from your window.

 

Your eyes drift to the small dining room table, where your father sits sipping tea from some old china that your mother had been keen enough to pinch from one of her clients.

 

“It’s just green tea with lemon,” you reply with a raised eyebrow. “Nothing special.”

 

He looks at you somewhat sheepishly, “Just trying to make conversation.”

 

You walk over and sit across from him at the small table, fingers almost immediately beginning to tap on the surface of the table. “I’m surprised that you haven’t asked me what I did for the last two years, especially since I made such a show of leaving.”

 

His learned blue eyes stare at you over the rim of the small cup before he places it down.  A small rather fatherly smile crosses his features, and your cheeks flush in surprise by the warmth on his face.

 

“I don’t have much of a reason to ask, do I?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You already told me you gave the money away, and I have a feeling it wasn’t to a criminal organization, was it?”

 

You cut your eyes away from him, “No.”

 

“Are you going to tell me where?”

 

“Charity.”

 

“Which one?”

 

“Is that important?”

 

“Not really, no,” he says picking up the cup and taking another sip. “It just that a few of our subsidiary charities, especially the ones having to do with placing children in homes, have been getting extremely large donations for the past two years. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”

 

“Maybe someone didn’t know that Wayne enterprises infests every aspect of this economy and just happened to give money not knowing where it was going.”

 

“Infests?” He questions with a chuckle. “I’ve never heard anyone compare my company to an infestation before.”

 

“Yeah well that is what it seems like,” you say arms crossed over your chest. “You have a hand in everything, don’t you?”

 

“Perhaps.”

 

You roll your eyes, “I went away to practice too. Believe it or not I was having even more trouble controlling my powers when I left. All though look what good that did me.”

 

“Did you find someone to help you?” He questions.

 

“No, not many people offer telekinetic training out in the open,” You say with a roll of your eyes. “What I worked on was my emotions. When I left, I was at an emotional high. I didn’t know how much longer I would have before my emotions would consume me. Outbursts like the one you saw were common place. So, after I got rid of the money, I bought a small apartment and I meditated.”

 

“Where?”

 

“If I told you that when I run away again you’ll find me,” you say with pursed lips.

 

It takes him a minute to realize your joking, and when he does he allows a small smirk to run over his features.

 

“Are you planning on staying here now?”

 

Your eyes glance at the apartment and your eyes soften at the idea, “Are you going to come over and bother me every day?”

 

“Is once a week too much?” He questions. “I feel like we still have a lot to learn about each other. It would be easier if you came home.”

 

“I am home,” you bite quickly, the phrase coming out harsher than you intended it too, but he doesn’t react negatively almost as if he was expecting the reaction.

 

There is heavy silence that falls over the room.

 

“They don’t know that you’re back yet,” he says quietly watching your features for your reaction.

 

“Is Jason’s hand okay?”

 

“Yes, I think his pride was more wounded than his hand was.”

 

“I see.”

 

“If you don’t want to move back in, you should at least come by and visit.”

 

“I hope you aren’t expecting some big happy family reunion.”

 

“Never that, but it would help to alleviate some of the guilt that they been dealing with since you’ve been gone. It’s probably the only request I’ll have for you.”

 

You stare at him blankly for a moment. In your mind, the only person that you need to see is Jason and that was only to apologize, the rest you had no desire to see.

 

“If that’s what you want,” you comply, surprising yourself a little. After all, appeasing your father one little thing couldn’t hurt too much.

 

“Oh, are you going to start being nice to me now?” He asks with a playful smile.

 

“Don’t press your luck,” you say in a serious tone. “I just don’t hate you as much as before.”

 

A genuine smile spreads over his features, “That’s good enough for me.”


End file.
